Meat Grown in the Lab

With 300 animals killed every second in America alone, there is no question that our species eats too much meat. With developing countries in Africa and Asia also getting a taste for meat the emergence of a revolutionary possibility of producing meat artificially is very exciting. Even if animal welfare is not on your list of concerns, the meat industry contributes to global warming on an unimaginable scale. The methane released by cows as they digest food along with the energy involved in maintaining fields, transporting meat and running slaughter houses is having an extremely detrimental effect on the ozone layer.

The first lab-grown hamburger was revealed four years ago and whilst many people think it is weird, others have seen the amazing potential this technology holds. On a large enough scale, theoretically, we would no longer need to farm animals and could produce meat directly in our cities. Whilst Quorn products are being rapidly developed and are actually a very healthy and tasty alternative, this is actual meat grown from muscle cells of a cow. By removing the necessity of killing from the process and maintaining the actual product; carnivores and vegetarians alike can have no complaints.

Stem cells are harvested from the cow’s muscle tissue and multiplied in the lab before being placed in the necessary conditions for them to differentiate into muscle fibres. Lots of these fibres are fused and bound together before being mixed with fat cells produced in a similar way to create minced beef. Whilst this process is currently done in a petridish, with access to bioreactors, billions of cells could be simultaneously generated and with the proper investment the production process could be refined until the lab grown meat tastes identical or even superior to our currently available options